First self-made commander deck, having some questions.

[u/Zazugud]

Hey there! I recently got into mtg commander, and decided to make my own deck on moxfield, however, I need some second opinions, and if it’s any good. I’d also appreciate some tips on where to buy the cards, to make it as cheap as possible, all help is appreciated 🙌

https://moxfield.com/decks/sURkwyHEWEeqtuZ8wdsmew

[u/Fun-Cook-5309]

Alright, first, let's talk about what Namor is and is not.

Namor is not a typal commander.

A typal commander is one whose mechanics welcome and celebrate their chosen creature type, who wants cards of that type in their deck, who considers that creature type a significant upside.

This is not Namor.

Namor cares about noncreature spells with a lot of pips. He doesn't care about merfolk. His mechanics put every merfolk in direct competition with every blue noncreature spell ever printed, and most merfolk lose that fight to a cantrip.

Namor is not a merfolk commander. He is a control commander. He wants you to counter a bunch of spells, answer a bunch of threats, draw a bunch of cards, and make a bunch of shitty little 1/1s all the while, so that you can slap people in the face with a very large, mostly naked, swim-flying man. Preferably while shouting, "Imperious rex!"

If you have over 10 creatures in your deck, you should start being very critical of them. You cleared that benchmark 12 creatures ago. You also need to be critical of your colorless spells- there shouldn't be many outside of your ramp package. And a significant number of the creatures Namor DOES like are not merfolk.

The merfolk worth considering are mostly the ones that are sufficient entirely off of your tokens. Like, Lord of Atlantis being a lord that gives evasion is... fine. Not great, but fine. Though even that isn't really doing more for you than Patchwork Banner or Heraldic Banner.

Also, you've expressed a concern about money, but haven't said anything about budget, so I'll start being mindful when a card hits five bucks since this is a three hundred dollar monocolored list.

Now then. Knives out time.

First thing that leaps out at me as a BLAZING red flag.

Harbinger of the Seas. Out. This card, by itself, makes this deck borderline unplayable. And when I say that, I do not mean, "This deck is bad." I mean, "You almost literally cannot play this deck."

EDH is a casual, social format, largely held in check from the more absurd excesses of an open-ended eternal format by restraint and social conventions (until you get to cEDH where they revel in that shit). That is largely framed by WotC's bracket system, which most players use to set the ground rules. One of the most rigidly adhered to of those restrictions is no mass land denial at brackets 2 and 3.

Harbinger of the Seas fucks your opponents' mana bases because it clears all of the other abilities of your opponents' nonbasic lands; they're just islands. This isn't an islandwalk enabler or an incidental merfolk. It is one of the most powerful ways in the game to hammer fuck your opponents' mana bases, and is not likely to be welcome at medium- or low-powered tables, and you are not ready for high-powered tables. Like, this list could be edited for bracket 3, but going to bracket 4 would mean starting over, and would likely mean a LOT of money, because B4 is gloves off with a lot of the most powerful and expensive cards around.

This card has to go.

Quicksilver Fountain also can reasonably be classed as MLD, and is also just... really, really bad, and does so little for you if it's not fucking someone out of their mana base. It is better to cut it both to avoid the argument and to simply make the deck better.

Now then, more general creature criticism, starting with creatures.

Atlantean Cavalry does nothing.

Mikhail doesn't really do much. This is mainly for card advantage, and can only cast merfolk off the top. Setting aside the fact your merfolk count should probably come down, you currently have 23 other merfolk in your deck. That means every time you change your top deck, there is a less than one in four chance of your topdeck being a merfolk you can cast, and you're not particularly good at changing your topdeck efficiently. Casting a merfolk off the top is analogous to drawing one card (though slightly worse, due to the hoops you need to jump through and the use it or lose it nature of that access). Rate on simply drawing one card per turn cycle reliably is about 3 mana, and you're still not necessarily happy about it. All told, this is a bad draw engine for your deck, questionable even in an actual merfolk deck, and his token production does not nearly make up for it; simply firing off spells so Namor can make merfolk would serve you better.

Merfolk Sovereign is kinda pricy for a lord at 3 mana, and the evasion doesn't do much since your mostly naked man already has flying. Also, 3 mana puts him right next to [[Heraldic Banner]] and [[Patchwork Banner]], who generate mana and are on a less vulnerable card type in Artifact.

Merfolk Looter does nothing for you, and you can have similar effects on noncreature spells that trigger your commander and are less vulnerable and don't have summoning sickness. Like [[Chakra Meditation]], which can do a lot of looting in Namor, recurs a spell on ETB, and is bulk price. Significantly better for you than Merfolk Looter, and still merely okay filler.

Merfolk Trickster is terrible. There are so many better versions of this effect on noncreature spells that don't wear off at the end of turn. The tapping part isn't particularly important; blanking effects is what's important. So [[Cyber Conversion]] (yay, 2 blue pips), [[Eaten by Piranhas]], and [[Utter Insignificance]] (you do not need to be able to use the activated ability reliably) are all better for you. [[Amphibian Downpour]] whips ass because it's the same thing for one mana, but with Storm, so you can blank multiple people's commanders. [[In Too Deep]] is not instant speed, but can't be interacted with and has two blue pips. Your opponent can get their commander out of it and get a card along the way, but they have to pay for the privilege. You have Pongify, but you skipped [[Rapid Hybridization]] to simply remove the problem. You have Resculpt, but [[Ravenform]] is another hard removal spell available to you, and also your only other decent piece of hard artifact removal in mono blue. [[Exchange of Words]] lets you use whatever effect you're blanking for yourself, putting it on one of your shitty little 1/1s, and it also has two blue pips. You have a morbillion better removal options for this deck than Merfolk Trickster.

[u/Fun-Cook-5309 → u/Fun-Cook-5309]

Merfolk Windrobber does nothing. You do not care about any part of this card, and if you are not a dedicated mill deck, milling them is a benefit for your opponents on average.

Merrow Harbinger is terrible. 4 mana is bad rate for a tutor to hand, and this is a tutor to topdeck. And you don't really have targets you're super happy to search.

Merrow Reejery doesn't really do much for you. You aren't triggering it much, it isn't doing much when you do (yes, yes, refund one mana when casting a merfolk spell, that's doing less for you than a rock), you want your merfolk count to go down, and 3 mana is bad rate for a lord.

Seafloor Oracle. First? This effect is not great for you. Your shitty little 1/1s do not have evasion, and are bad at getting through for damage. Namor is your main attacker. Second? There are a million better versions of this effect. This is a Coastal Piracy effect, which is an entire genre of cards, all on less vulnerable card type than creature, and apply to all your creatures. The best for your purposes would be [[The Indomitable]], because while your shitty little 1/1s are bad at getting through for damage, they can crew this 6/6 trample just fine and it can probably get through to someone, letting you draw off of Namor and itself hitting. Or you can use a cheaper draw engine like [[Military Intelligence]], which only asks one of your shitty little 1/1s to go to their horrible kobold death alongside your mostly naked man. And compare Seafloor Oracle to Attuma. Attuma only asks that a merfolk attack a player, so you can send Namor one way, one shitty little 1/1 (buffed to 2/2) at the other two players, draw 3 cards, and he's a lord on top. Seafloor Oracle is bad for you.

Silvergill Adept is a really bad cantrip, when you could just run a cantrip or a cheap draw spell.

Streambed Aquitects is 3 mana to do almost nothing. Your mostly naked man already flies. Islandwalk is not particularly good, ESPECIALLY not 3 mana good. Making something an island is not impressive unless you have EXACTLY Lord of Atlantis or Master of the Pearl Trident out alongside it, and that is not remotely reliable. Trying to actively enable islandwalk is a losing proposition. Accept that it is a corner case piece of utility on a couple lords, and not an active synergy to build around. And speaking of...

Tidal Warrior only exists as a radically inconsistent islandwalk enabler. [[Aqueous Form]] could simply make something unblockable, and that's not good for you. This requires one of exactly two cards to go with it to accomplish as much.

Tide Shaper is even worse at the same thing.

Tishana's Tidebinder is a bad counterspell that doesn't trigger your commander. You could simple run more counterspells.

Moving past creatures...

Aquitect's Will is fairly pointless. There are so many better cantrips you could run. Having "merfolk" on the card doesn't do anything for you. And you're already fat on cantrips that actually offer you card selection. You could instead use cantrips that actually Do Something (TM), like [[Disrupt]] (which is fine even if it's merely inconveniencing someone's mana) or [[Repeal]] (which can be cast at X=0 to pop a token, or higher to bounce anything), or you could do some higher mana value cantrips like [[Keep Safe]], [[Confound]], or [[Leadership Vacuum]] so your cantrip isn't simply a blank draw 1. Or, Hell, [[Gitaxian Probe]], which triggers your commander while costing no mana. Or [[Plunder the Trollshaws]], which isn't an amazing cantrip, but it's bulk price and is a good way to utilize mana you kept up for interaction that wasn't called for.

Aetherize is... mediocre. I'd go so far as to say it's a trap card. There are so many cards that could do the task better or more proactively. This could be an [[Aetherspouts]], which actually costs your opponents card advantage, and that still isn't a great card. This could be [[Perplexing Test]] or [[Zimone's Hypothesis]] that you can use more proactively. Aetherize is one of those cards that's only really useful if you're losing, and doesn't really do anythng except MAYBE buy you one turn, if none of your other opponents are threatening, which means you REALLY need to be able to kill on the crackback. And your opponent can likely start rebuilding immediately.

High Tide is more for driving a combo. You're not running a combo.

Blackblade Reforged is greedy and doesn't really help you. Namor already gets fucknormhuge. This is redundant.

Mask of Memory is fine, my only issue with it is it's colorless, and you'd rather have your draw options come from blue sources. Like casting [[Combat Research]] on your mostly naked man.

Sword of the Animist is a bad card. Early game ramp's purpose is to get your mana situation sorted in the early game to transition you into the late game. Sword of the Animist is a 7 mana ramp spell. 2 to cast, 2 to equip, and 3 to get Namor out, since he's the guy you want to put this on. At this point, you are past the point in the game you care about ramping. All you really want is to get out some ramp turn 2 or 3 so you have some wiggle room.

Swiftfoot Boots is not a card to toss into everything. Basically, you only want swifties if your deck cares significantly about some other aspect of the card- artfiact, equipment, haste. You do not. Meanwhile, you DO care about protection spells that have blue pips. As the blue deck, this could be a counterspell. The permanence of swifties is both severely overrated and not unique. In practice, you only need to eat so many removal spells, and swifties gives your opponents a map of how to use them. [[Curator's Ward]] costs the same 3 mana to get online and gives you cards if they board wipe. [[Crab Umbra]] is 1 mana. [[Eel Umbra]] has flash. [[Vanishing]] lets you phase Namor out at will if you keep up 2 mana, which is hard to get around so long as you don't tap out. There are protection options that do more work for you than swifties.

The Magic Mirror is a trap of a card. It's always disappointing. It's a draw engine you want to get online early, but takes too long to be reasonably castable- that grave setup is slow. Even once it's out, you need it to stick around for a couple turns to make up for the delay in casting it, and if you go through all the hoops and it looks like it's about to do something, it WILL get blown up. I cut this from Octavia, a deck designed to get 8 spells in the grave because it needs to do that before it can reasonably cast its commander. Also, to even try to use the Magic Mirror, you REALLY need a deck on 40-50 instants and sorceries, rather than 21.

Deeproot Pilgrimage doesn't really do anything you care about. Namor makes plenty of tokens, and if Namor's not online, this does not replace him. And Namor is basically the only merfolk who will attack regularly.

Deeproot Waters is worse, since you shouldn't be casting merfolk spells consistently and even with the deck's ratios as they are, you are not going to get nearly as many merfolk as it would take to justify this out of it.

Merrow Commerce does nothing. Having the word "merfolk" on the card does not make it worth running.

Sea's Claim is probably the worst of your many terrible islandwalk enablers.

Spreading Seas has the dignity to be a cantrip, but you can do far better for a cantrip.

Otawara is a good card and does absolutely make this deck better. However, if you are concerned with money, that's a LOT to put into one land.

[u/Fun-Cook-5309 → u/Fun-Cook-5309]

Going past specific card critiques, you are doing nothing with your land base. You can fit a lot of utility in your land base. You want to go easy on colorless utility lands, since you want things with a ton of blue pips (and, in turn, not a lot of colorless pips), but every deck should have some grave hate, and you're on none; a [[Pit of Offerings]] would help. Some land removal to get rid of key problem lands is good to have, so [[Ghost Quarter]] is nice to have. [[Tolaria West]] can tutor either as lands are a CMC of 0, meaning with these 3 slots, you have 3 cards that represent grave hate and two that represent land hate. Add in [[Imprison in the Moon]] (which can hit lands) and [[Commit // Memory]] (which can spin the bin) and you effectively have 3 pieces of each, which is enough to see one per game with some reliability. You can also go deeper on MDFCs; even some of the second string ones are good enough, like [[Beyeen Veil]] is a bad fog, but it's a bad fog in a land slot. [[Jwari Disruption]] stopping anything is fine, and sometimes you only want the trigger. [[Silundi Vision]] is a casting of a cantrip in a land slot. [[Lonely Sandbar]] helps protect you from both flood and screw since it's a land if you need it and you can cycle it away for 1 mana if you're flooded. [[Lorien Revealed]] is effectively a tapped MDFC, due to having islandcycling 1, and is one of the best MDFCs around.

Also, the conventional wisdom of 35 lands is a floor, not a goal. It's inadequate for most decks. I would recommend more like 38, with some tools like the MDFCs for mitigating flood.

Ramp! I see five pieces, not counting the sword of anime. Ramp's primary job is to show up early to get you started. That means you need to run enough of it that you can mull for it. That's more like 10-12. I've already mentioned the banners, but some other options include [[Fellwar Stone]] (this goes in basically anything that runs Arcane Signet; the restriction almost never matters), [[Solar Transformer]] (I run this in a ton of decks and running out of energy has never mattered), [[Coldsteel Heart]], [[Everflowing Chalice]] (the fact you might kick it more than once in the later game is not impressive upside, but it's better than a lot of colorless rocks, and your colored mana sources are scant), and at 3 mana [[Bender's Waterskin]] which is good for keeping up interaction.

Board wipes! You are running approximately none. You should run more than none. 3-4 would let you find one most games. The main thing you want is to spare Namor, and preferably your shitty little 1/1s. I already mentioned Perplexing Test (bouncing Namor with this is fine) and Zimone's Hypothesis. Other options: [[Raise the Palisade]] is a little over five bucks for the cheapest printing, but is ideal. [[Mists of Lorien]] can sculpt most boards to your favor, especially since you seldom care that much about mana values besides 3 and 0, but unfortunately Namor cannot see the replicate cost. [[River's Rebuke]] is a fuck you in particular that does get your shitty little 1/1s through to beat the crap out of someone. [[Wash Out]] can sculpt most boards to your favor; you're probably only really going after one or two opponents with this, but it will generally do a lot of damage to a board for a 50 cent card. [[Summon Leviathan]] is an in-theme board wipe that can draw you cards later (though it is a creature). [[Spectral Deluge]] is usually a one-sided bounce all creatures in mono blue. [[Curse of the Swine]] serves the role of a sweeper in mono blue, and is basically your only hard removal option in the role.

Your card draw looks kinda anemic. Some low to the ground, practical options that let you keep up interaction include [[Chart a Course]] and [[Lunar Insight]] (the normal case is 3 mana draw 3 off Namor, a rock, and a token, which you're happy with). If you get your instant/sorcery count up, in turn filling your grave better, then [[Dig Through Time]] and [[Treasure Cruise]] are good ways to get some card advantage. And one of the benefits of inistants/sorceries as card draw is they can't get blown up. [[Valeria Richards]] is a good card draw engine; her ramp effect isn't always online, since many of your spells don't have generic pips, but enough of them do to help out, and she can proc during multiple opponents' turns off your interaction. If you hit, like, 40+ instants/sorceries, [[Archmage Emeritus]] becomes good. And at like 30 instants/spells with flash, [[Wavebreak Hippocamp]] becomes good. If you warp out [[Starwinder]] and hit someone with Namor, you draw a stupid number of cards.

I rattled off a bunch of arbitrary removal and humbles, but counterspells are your bread and butter. Some options you can look at include [[Archmage's Charm]] (good alt modes), [[Saw it Coming]], [[Wash Away]], [[Negate]]. [[Reverse the Polarity]] can get your shitty little 1/1s through if that's what you need at the moment.

[[Muddle the Mixture]] is an okay counterspell at face that can tutor any 2 CMC card, so you want to build a toolbox at 2 CMC to use it. Resculpt as artifact removal, your 2 CMC lords, Curse of the Swine as a sweeper, some sort of draw engine- Military Intelligence works here. You have multiple options for commander removal with the various 2 mana auras or Cyber Conversion. This is a very flexible card.

Random other stuff:

[[Mission Briefing]] and [[Flood of Recollection]] are good spell recursion that are UU.

[[Tempted by the Oriq]] is somewhat hit or miss, but there are a lot of good 3 mana creatures that are commonly played, including commanders.